In radio systems of today a number of different services beside speech is offered to the users of the radio network. Such additional services offered to subscribers via radio systems include services like Short Message Service SMS and MMS. Additional services have just started to emerge and users can now also subscribe to services like Music Download, Video Telephony, Mobile-TV, MBMS, and different WeShare applications.
Furthermore, for radio system planning purposes and resource management in general, it is very important for the operator of cellular radio systems to collect relevant data regarding the performance in different parts of the system and for different types of applications. Today, data relating to the performance of the radio system network is collected by drive tests performed by special test units.
However, for the new packet switched services, such as Music download or Mobile-TV, it is not possible to indicate to the network if the service session was successful or not. To exemplify, if a subscriber subscribes to a service such as progressive Music download it is important for the subscriber that the music is continuous in nature. In other words the receiving buffer should not run empty causing a disruption in the music played. Equally important is it for the operator of the radio system to be notified of such events to be able to take proper action for this not to re-occur. However, as stated above, existing radio system networks are unable to provide relevant data relating to the performance of different mobile applications in an efficient manner.
Hence, it is not possible for the operator of the radio system to monitor if the player buffer in the mobile station application did run empty, causing an interruption in the music playback.
As a result it very difficult to know when it is necessary to improve the radio network so that a service having an expected service level can be provided in all parts of a cellular radio network. At the same time it is important to be able to target those areas where the service is delivered at an expected service level to not make unnecessary investments in the radio network. It is thus important to enable the operator to make the right changes and improvements in the frequency plan to increase quality or add the number of transceivers to increase the cell capacity at the areas in need of such improvements.
Hence, there exist a need for a method and a system that can enable the operator to identify problems relating to the performance of packet switched applications in a cellular radio network in order to efficiently manage the resources of the cellular radio system network.